A guide to high school slang

by Mr. K

After a year and a half of teaching, I’ve become quite familiar with the slang of teenagers in Rhode Island and beyond. Below is my best attempt to define some of the terms and expressions that I hear most often in my classroom and hallways. Disclaimer: some of these are mildly offensive.

amped - adj. excited, joyful; hardly able to control oneself (“The bell is ringing in two minutes? I’m so amped!”)

beast - n. one who is very good at something (“I’m a beast yo, I just solved that equation all by myself.”)

come at one’s neck - idiom. to disrespect; to be unnecessarily belligerent (“Mister, I wasn’t talking! Why you comin’ at my neck?”)

coño - interj. [Dominican] used to express impatience or frustration (“Stop talking, we still need to do Example 3 coño!”)

cuff - interj. used to express that something is silly or foolish (“Cuff, I just wrote 5 + 3 = 9.”)